3 steps to success in designing new services

For many companies, creating new services that are desirable to consumers is a challenging task. Especially for manufacturing companies, it requires moving away from the core of what makes you money, towards something that is completely unknown

However, there are 3 key things that any company should keep in mind when attempting to build new services to increase the chances of success.

1. Use the power of your internal network

It used to be the case that companies would be more successful the more they specialised. This caused companies to create very focused business units. While specialisation is necessary for incremental advances or manufacturing efficiency, it must now be complemented by cross-functional teams that look at capabilities across organisations. Customers value integration. Think about how much redundancy you experience as a customer of a telco with a dozen apps or a bank that cannot transfer your information to another department. The same goes for companies that make products. What if your appliances talked to one another, or with your car or smartwatch.

The customer-friendly synergies that lead to novel services can only come about by breaking down silos and talking to other departments.

Very often in our work, one of the earliest steps is to have in depth conversations with internal company stakeholders from across the organisation. Stakeholder input, together with consumer and market trends, can then be utilised when creating new initiatives and services. Having workshops to get buy in from across the organisation is critical throughout the process.

Actively designing into your organisation the ability for departments to talk together and work together is a fundamental step to innovating your customer experience and creating new value-added services.

 2. Build a future vision

What could the world look like in 5 or 10 years? Some things are hard to predict, but others are simpler: demographic changes, megatrends, emerging technologies all give signals that give you a fairly good indication of how things will proceed. Within those future scenarios, is it likely that there will be new entrants to your industry? Is demand going to increase or decrease for your products? How could new technology make your offering more value added, or obsolete?

These questions will lead you to a number of potential futures, some more desirable than others. Nevertheless, there will be changes.

In our projects, we use a methodology called “backcasting” where we help clients envision the future, and work backwards from there.

How you prepare for changes will depend on the actions you take now.

This leads us on to the last point.

3. Find quick wins to build momentum… and make money

The industries most at risk from disruption are already suffering the ill effects of eroded margins and fewer sales. Add to this the huge costs of technical innovation, and the situation can seem dire. However, once you have decided on possible futures, and the most desirable future for your company, the steps to get there should become clearer.

The steps towards a desirable future can then be executed in such a way that also optimises for short term ROI.

What services could best be implemented in the short term that will also generate revenues?

What services maximise the use of existing assets today while moving us towards the company we need to be in 10 years’ time?

How can we make the best use of the strength of our value chain today, while leveraging new, complementary partners?

The answers to these questions can help to prioritise initiatives, generate cash, and move you towards your long-term goals.

If you would like to talk about how Mormedi helps companies create innovative services, you can email me at maruan@mormedi.com.